"5 hour wait for a child with head injury"

I took my son to hospital on the advice of NHS direct after my 6 year old son suffered a head injury at school 2 weeks ago. He was sent home from school with nothing more than the usual bump note so I wasn't too worried as this is a regular occurance with my son due to his autism. he was complaining of headache from the minute he was dropped off from school but seemed ok after an hour or so.

At about 7pm he started complaining that his head was hurting again and then proceeded to start being sick repeatedly. Needless to say I was very worried by this point because he was very dozy and not making much sense. I called NHS Direct for their advice and they told me to get him to the Childrens Hospital in Sheffield immediately - which I did.

I reached the hospital at about 9pm and he was seen pretty much straight away by the triage nurse which suprised me as they were quite busy. She then took us to a differant part of the hospital and told us to wait in the waiting room for a doctor and was told not to let my son go to sleep until a doctor had seen him.

To cut a very long story short- it was 2.10am before anyone came to see my son and by which point he had fallen asleep, I was very tired and angry because both myself and my husband had to be at work at 5am and had also left my mother at home with our other 2 children.

I appreciate that the hospital was busy and that sometimes a long wait is un-avoidable but to leave a 6 year old autistic boy with a head injury sat waiting for nearly 5 hours is absolutely disgusting.

No-one came to check if he was ok or to tell us what was happening and I had to keep pestering the nurses to give me some idea of how long it was going to be before my son would be seen, only to be told that there was only 1 doctor avaliable for the whole of the hospital that night!!!!!!

I have to say though, that when we eventually did see the doctor she was very apologetic and suggested I make a complaint. Luckily, my son was well enough to go home by this point, she said he had probably burst a small vessel in his head which had caused all the problems but because he hadn't been sick while he was at hospital, they were happy for him to go home.

I can only wonder though, what if it had been more serious?